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housing firms have been told to narrow streets, placing emphasis on pedestrian and cycle access, and make better use of shared space
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Edinburgh urged to adopt European style housing"
(8 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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How do they work out that "The city needs to construct 16,000 new homes over the next decade"?
And what about all those houses/flats in Leith that aren't being built any more? Or are they still going up, just more slowly?
Posted 12 years ago # -
We must build more houses. Except all the ones we were going to build, but aren't because nobody bought them because we built too many houses.
Or something like that.
Maybe we need more "student villages"? We don't have nearly enough of those.
Planning chiefs are concerned about the lack of space available in the capital and are reluctant to release green-belt land.
Perhaps the "planning chiefs" aren't aware of all the gap sites around town that already exist? Shurbhill, Caltongate, Springside, Granton, Leith Docks. Maybe we should send them a memo to remind them.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Planning chiefs are concerned about the lack of space available in the capital"
Missed a bit -
", that developers say they are willing to build on'
Or perhaps more realistically -
", that developers can build on and make money"
Presumably this is why there is so much student accommodation - presume that can fit in more people with a guaranteed rent income per person.
Fundamentally it's about land 'values'.
In a proper 'market economy' the current value of a lot of city centre/brownfield sites would be a lot lower.
BUT they are still 'on the books' of various companies (including banks that you may own a piece of) some of which would collapse if 'truer' values could be admitted. Some companies are owned by shareholders which are in practice the pension funds that seem unlikely to be able to pay the pensions 'promised' when millions of people signed up for them.
Of course on the buying side, people can only buy if they can get a mortgage, and be reasonably confident of keeping an income and that interest rates don't shoot up one day.
Bit of a mess really.
Last (UK) Government relied a bit too much on the 'inevitability' of rising house prices. The current Westminster Government seems set to inflate the problem.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I'm sure the planners are aware of that. They'd love it if developers would build C21st tenements/"lluxury" flats in Leith and the city centre. That's where the infrastructure and facilities are. Developers though prefer to build more Barratt style hutches with their own gardens, garges, and driveways on agricultural land. Preferably within reasonable driving distance of the bypass. Apparently that's what "the market" wants: the suburban dream/nightmare.
I think the "colinies/mews" riff is just the planners tryibng to tell developers to think more imaginatively beyond low density semi-detached/terraced architecture on the English mould.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Developers though prefer to build more Barratt style hutches with their own gardens"
That is one part of the market.
But Barratt is actually one company that has done a lot of 'brownfield infill' in Edinburgh and Leith.
This is what Wayne Hemmingway and Wimpey did in Gateshead to address some of the 'issues' -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staiths_South_Bank
'Success' depends on who you believe.
Posted 12 years ago # -
It even tried it in US!
"Barratt blazes a trail in US brownfield regeneration" (2004)
http://www.building.co.uk/3034062.article
No idea how that went.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@chdot, yes all true. The image of "little boxes, on the hillside" still sticks from all those developments in the 1980s and 90s though...
Posted 12 years ago #
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